Average lifetime bill from the taxman is £668,000... and rising

The average household faces a lifetime tax bill of £668,000 at current rates of taxation, campaigners said yesterday.

The figure has risen 6 per cent in a year, according to the TaxPayers' Alliance, the pressure group which produced the estimates.

The figures are based on the amount of taxes which it calculates that a typical household would pay over a period of 40 years in work and a further 15 years in retirement.

Higher bills: The tax burden for the average household has risen by 6 per cent over the last year

The alliance said that the lifetime bill had risen even more sharply for poor households, up from £233,000 under last year's taxation rate to £264,000 this year - a 13 per cent increase.

Corin Taylor, the group's research director, said: 'The Government say they sympathise with the plight of ordinary people, but they don't seem to care about the massive tax burden that people have to pay throughout their lives.

'People are struggling to make ends meet, and if the Government genuinely wants to help them they must cut taxes.'

The TPA also commissioned a poll of 1,600 voters by the Politics Home website which found that 64 per cent believed the Government was taxing and spending too much.

Seventy-four per cent thought that politicians were using environmental concerns as an excuse to bring in green taxes.